Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar

by Darcy Kuronen, Carl Tremblay (Photographer), Lenny Kaye (Contributor)

"The guitar and the dog, in order not to be separated from man, have submitted themselves with resignation to the worst alterations of size and appearance." Andres Segovia

Genres: Music, Art

Hardcover

First published September 1, 2000

Reviews

[Chris]

Dangerous Curves is a gorgeous photographic history of the guitar. I am quite pleased with the inclusion of instruments stretching all the way back to the Baroque era, as well as pre-Torres six-string designs; many guitar books seem to unfairly exclude these foundational historical instruments. This book's selection of guitars is excellent, featuring a compelling mixture of iconic traditional shapes and mind-bending experiments. The quality of the photography by Tremblay et al. is likewise superb, and the shots are printed on satisfyingly substantial and glossy paper. While I would have appreciated more technical information about the designs presented, I cannot reasonably fault a book based on an MFA exhibit, and subtitled The Art of the Guitar, for its lack of electromechanical detail.

My legitimate qualms with Dangerous Curves are few, but they do impact the reader's experience. Kuronen's descriptions of each instrument appear to be lifted directly from the museum exhibit in which the book finds its genesis. There is no issue with reusing pre-prepared text per se, but the descriptions reference physical characteristics of their corresponding instruments that are not clearly visible in the accompanying photographs with a distracting frequency (by my count, there are ten instances). Kuronen also takes a couple of unexpected potshots—one at a particular guitar's headstock design on p. 165, and another at the entire musical genre of disco on p. 169. I did not find this degree of editorializing helpful or necessary.

Dangerous Curves is a reasonable success as a history of the world's most popular non-voice musical instrument; it is a resounding success as the visually lavish experience that presumably predominated its creators' intentions.

[Mike]

I'm about half way through this book. I have a lot of guitar books. What I like about this one is it starts from the beginning of guitars in the 1500s and continues all the way up to the year 2000 I suppose. Going by the copyright date the book is 21 years old but I just found it in the used section of my local Barnes and Noble in very good condition. Like I said I have many guitar books that cover modern guitars and even guitars as far back as the 30s and 40s but this is the first book I've found that goes all the way back to the 1500s. The photos are very good also. I've learned a lot about the origins of guitars from reading this book.

Update: I finished read this book. It was a good read and I'll probably come back to it from time to time, especially when buying vintage guitars.

[Monica]

Saw this exhibit at the MFA. The words are boring, the pictures are great.

[Erik]

I bought this book at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, immediately after seeing the exhibit of the same name.